The Digital Yoknapatawpha Project

The people in the "good crowd" (198) watching the barnstorming show react variously to what happens, especially at its aborted climax: some express disbelief and shock; some of the women faint. Children are also present, and there's a mix of town and country people. One "countrywoman" is repeatedly and vocally skeptical about the authenticity of the show: "You can't tell me" this or that, she says, but ultimately demanding to be taken "right home this minute" when the stunt starts to go wrong (199-200).

Vernon owns the café where Captain Warren and Jock talk. He seems like an attentive and successful businessman; people know his place by his name, and Jock and Captain Warren seem comfortable there. At Jock's simple beckoning, Vernon serves Jock as much water as he can drink, and Jock is always thirsty.

Calvin Coolidge was the thirtieth President of the United States (1923-1929). He was a fiscally conservative Republican who favored a laissez-faire economic policy; during his administration, tax rates for individuals and businesses were cut and regulatory practices on businesses were minimized. In "Death Drag," Ginsfarb blames President Coolidge's economic policies for "ruining" his former business (192) and forcing him into barnstorming.

This taxi driver in "Death Drag" unsuccessfully tries to get Ginsfarb to tell him who jumps off the airplane in the barnstorming show.

Ginsfarb is the barnstorming wing walker who performs the aerobatic stunts suggested by the story's title. His characterization emphasizes his Jewish ethnicity, sometimes in very stereotypical ways. Although he is a "short man," his "nose" would "have fitted a six-foot body" (187); he is so greedy for money that he can't be trusted to negotiate with the small towns the team performs in: "he'd stick out for his price too long" and so might well attract the attention of "anybody that might catch them" running the illegal show (195, 194).

Dressed in a suit and "handsome in a dull quiet way," Jake is "also a Jew" (like Ginsfarb). He looks to the narrator like "a man of infrequent speech" (unlike Ginsfarb). It's worth noting that although the narrator identifies the two men as Jews, he qualifies that by saying that "the spectators saw" that they "were of a different race from themselves, without being able to say what the difference was" (188). Jake drives the car during airshow the for Ginsfarb's death drop and death drag.

A former pilot in the Royal Flying Corps who has lost his civilian pilot's license, Jock is one of Faulkner's aviators who cannot stay away from airplanes. He is a tall, dashing figure whose stained clothing and unruly hair indicate that he doesn't care about his physical appearance; insomniac and perennially thirsty, he is emotionally tense and self-contained and won't accept offers of help from his former comrade-in-arms, Captain Warren.

"A Negro or two" are among the first people to reach the airplane after it lands at the town airport (186).

These boys are the first to appear at the airfield when the barnstormers land there after having performed a stunt over the town. They are curious about the airplane and the aviators and ask questions that the adults can't or won't. Noticing that "two of the strangers were of a different race from themselves," one asks the "limping man" who turns out to be Ginsfarb, "Were you in the war?" (188). They accompany barnstormers into town, where a boy repeats the question, assuming that the limp is the result of a war injury (192).

Captain Warren seems like a well-to-do war veteran who has established himself comfortably in his home town; adults and children alike know him as "an ex-army flyer" who "was in the war" (185, 188), and he can afford to offer Jock his own overcoat when Jock's tears completely apart during the air show. He has an easy camaraderie with Jock, taking him to a café to talk and inviting him home to dinner; they apparently knew each other well enough "fourteen years ago" to take up immediate conversation upon meeting again (193).